Scott Magdalein

Content-first web design

Wed, 15 May 2013 08:42:20 -0400

Content is king, especially when it comes to designing or building a website for someone else. Designing page layouts without content is like designing a car with no clue of how many people it should be able to seat. Is it going to be a bus or a coupe?

If you’re hiring someone else to build your website, help them do an amazing job by making a decision on the type of content on each page before they get started. You’d be surprised at how many revision rounds can be saved by using a content-first approach. Fewer revisions means less money and a faster launch.

parislemon: shortformblog: Some design agency spent a lot of...

Sat, 11 May 2013 17:41:03 -0400

parislemon:

shortformblog:

Some design agency spent a lot of time coming up with a rough concept of what iOS 7 probably isn’t going to look like. But let’s just say it looks kind of cool.

Some good stuff, some awful stuff. Overall, a “B”. Expect about 1,000 more of these as we inch closer to WWDC.

Update: John Gruber has some good thoughts on the video:

The shape of app icons is not going to change from round-cornered squares to sharp-cornered ones (or any other shape for that matter). Apple owns this shape; this shape says “iOS app” in everyone’s mind. It’s even printed right on the hardware home button of every iOS device. In fact it’s the only thing printed on the front face of every iOS device.

It’s not clear why so many people seem to think “flat” equates to “square”. Because Windows Phone tiles are square? If that’s the case, chalk something up to Windows Phone — while they may not be doing well in market share, they seem to have a pretty good presence in mind share, at least from a “flat” design perspective.

This is terrible. Full departure from the iOS brand and just plain bad usability. Hard to tell what’s a button and what’s visual cruft. Looks like a Samsung Blur ripoff. What’s worse, it looks like Android on an iPhone. No thanks. Only good thing about this concept is the animation and easing.

Dance party

Sat, 04 May 2013 12:49:29 -0400

Dance party

The wheels on the bus. Saving this video forever.

Sat, 04 May 2013 12:45:27 -0400

The wheels on the bus. Saving this video forever.

Idea: audible NextDraft

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 21:49:14 -0400

Dave Pell sends a daily email with an entertaining summary of the day’s news that he thinks is worth your time to know. It’s a very human take on news aggregation and it’s wildly popular.

So my idea is to build an iPhone app that reads you the day’s top news so you can listen to it while you drive to work (or whatever else you do in the mornings). You’d have the ability to save any summary to read more about it later.

It’d be similar to having your incredibly well-informed friend recounting today’s big news to you.

People actually want to see your photos

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 14:24:26 -0400

There’s an article on Hacker News right now about Path doing some unethical things regarding users’ phone contacts. In the article, the offended user laments Path sending text messages and making phone calls (really?!) inviting the user’s phone contacts to Path under the guise that the user has photos to share with them.

But here’s the thing that stands out to me. All those people actually wanted to see the user’s photos, they just didn’t want to install yet-another-photo-app. They were contacting him to ask how they can see them without having to install the app.

That’s why I built PicDigest, so people can see your (real) social photos without having to installs special apps.

One of my favorite features in Twitter on the web is the...

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 09:29:18 -0400

One of my favorite features in Twitter on the web is the autocomplete for usernames. It means I can type their first name and don’t have to remember their weird Twitter handle.

Lucas’ first Perrier. The whistle in the background is a...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:12:07 -0400

Lucas’ first Perrier. The whistle in the background is a tugboat.

I’m an ENTJ according to the Myers-Briggs test. Hat tip to...

Tue, 09 Apr 2013 07:56:53 -0400

I’m an ENTJ according to the Myers-Briggs test. Hat tip to Amanda for the image.

I’ve done a lot of mobile UX design since my first app in...

Thu, 04 Apr 2013 10:58:53 -0400

I’ve done a lot of mobile UX design since my first app in August 2008, but I haven’t done much pure UI design working with the actual pixels that users will see. I want to get into it more.

I also love Draft and would love to be able to edit my existing documents from my iPhone. So I designed the bones of an app that would make that possible. There’s plenty missing from this design, like search, creating new documents, adjusting visual settings, publishing, etc, but the overall idea is there.

I tried to match Draft’s existing style while still making it feel native to the iPhone.

Design terminology is muddying the waters

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 12:39:00 -0400

Design terminology is muddying the waters:

Ryan Singer from 37Signals wrote on his blog this week about designing interfaces and how “UX” confuses the conversation. I’d take it one step further and say that the multitude of terms around software interface design causes confusion.

When I describe what I do to different people, I often use different terms. Most of the time I call myself a UX designer, but I’ll often change it up based on the context. Some people don’t know what UX means, so I’ll try to make use more common terms. Other people might call what I do interaction design, human interface design, user interface design, usability design, front-end design, design engineer…the list goes on.

Whatever you call it, what I do is design and build the part of websites or mobile apps that you can interact with, and I try to make that interaction as easy and enjoyable as possible.

"Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was..."

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 10:09:13 -0400

“Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.”

- Ecclesiastes 2:11

Ecclesiastes 3: balance, contentment, and humility

Thu, 28 Mar 2013 13:01:10 -0400

I did a little reading today and felt compelled to share it with you.

There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens - 3:1

Ecclesiastes is a sobering chapter. It’s the realist’s manifesto. Some see it as a resignation, an acceptance that we’re not in control. Others see it as a comfort, telling them that whatever hardship they’re experiencing will only last for a season.

But there’s more to this chapter than the balance of life through seasons. There is an admonition to be content with the simplicity of being happy, doing good, and working hard.

I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil — this is the gift of God. 3:12-13

So I saw that there is nothing better for a person than to enjoy their work, because that is their lot. 3:22

And interspersed throughout the chapter, the Teacher shows us our place in God’s universe. God is the Creator and we are too small to understand his work.

He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. 3:11

I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that people will fear him. 3:14

And he states a sobering fact: that we are also his creation and, just like the animals, God will do with us as he pleases.

I also said to myself, “As for humans, God tests them so that they may see that they are like the animals. Surely the fate of human beings is like that of the animals; the same fate awaits them both: As one dies, so dies the other. All have the same breath; humans have no advantage over animals. Everything is meaningless. All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return. Who knows if the human spirit rises upward and if the spirit of the animal goes down into the earth?” 3:18-21

No one likes to think of people as animals. Christians prefer Bible verses that talk about humans as being placed “a little lower than the angels” and crowned “with glory and honor.” Psalm 8:5

Ecclesiastes 3 shows us that God created a balanced universe, full of good things and bad things that all come in their time, that we should find satisfaction in the simplest of things, and that, while God loves us in a special way, we shouldn’t forget that we are still his creation meant for his pleasure.

Sometimes I have a tough time writing full blog posts. You see, most blog posts are 90% crap to...

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 18:06:12 -0400

Sometimes I have a tough time writing full blog posts. You see, most blog posts are 90% crap to support the other 10% which actually says something important.

Take this post for example. I’ve already written more than is necessary. All I really needed to say was, “90% of any given blog post exists to support the 10% that matters.” But I didn’t just leave it at that. I feel some compulsion to explain why that statement is true, or at least why I feel that it is true.

Summly understood this fact and the kid that built it tried to make something valuable to people that want to cut through the fat and get to the meat. Too bad Yahoo! had to ruin that party.

I’ve always loved the idea of someone smart summarizing things for me. Dave Pell does this with news through a daily email (and now an app) called NextDraft, but he carries a political bent that doesn’t serve everyone. And that’s really the hard part of about summarizing, it’s really hard to do so without having an opinion. Whether your bias shows up in the summary itself or in your decisions about which things to summarize, we’re human and opinion will always play a part.

Summly tried to get rid of the opinion factor by having a machine do the work, but then you lose the human touch.

Anyway, I don’t have a point.

How to work with me on a low budget

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 13:24:29 -0400

How to work with me on a low budget:

There’s too much goodness in this post to quote it all, so you’ll just have to read it yourself.

How blog metrics have changed since 2008

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:36:33 -0400

I haven’t blogged in earnest since about 2008. Things have changed in blog world since then. One of the interesting changes is that important blog metrics are much different than they used to be.

I used to obsess over two numbers: unique visitors and subscribers. Now the number of unique visitors your blog gets is more a reflection of your title-writing skills and your social media reach than the quality of your content. Those numbers can be skewed because many people use aggregators, feed readers, and “delayed reading” tools now. And subscriber numbers are a weak reflection of engagement since there’s no way to know what happens to your posts once they’re sucked into the reader.
I’ve chosen new metrics to value for New Method. I measure engagement by looking at active newsletter subscribers (really, opens and clicks) and the average time visitors spend on the blog. The newsletter metrics tell me how well I’m connecting directly with people and how much they trust me. The “time on site” metric shows me how much people value the content they find on the blog once they arrive.

Those two numbers, to me, signify a healthy and well-founded community.

I rarely read text on a website as the designer meant it to be read. Safari, both Mac and iOS, have...

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 09:48:22 -0400

I rarely read text on a website as the designer meant it to be read.

Safari, both Mac and iOS, have “Reader” mode that cleans everything up. I read lots of articles in feeders or aggregators (like Prismatic) that clean up the text, too.

This doesn’t mean that visual designers and shouldn’t be choosy about how their site’s text is displayed. It’s just an observation.

Dream big, execute small

Mon, 25 Mar 2013 09:28:57 -0400

Entrepreneurs are dreamers at their core. They see the future and it is filled with millions of people using their product. You rarely hear about someone starting a company with a small vision of the future.

Dreaming big is good. It keeps you moving forward because a sufficiently big dream is never really attained. Also, big dreams are what help entrepreneurs recruit followers.

But big dreams are tricky. Statistically, swinging for the fences is a bad way to hit home runs.

When I was a kid, my dad was my baseball coach. He taught me to swing for a double; specifically, pull it hard down the third base line and get it past the left fielder. That would give me a good view of where the ball was when I rounded first base so I could stretch it to a double if the situation was right.

Like most kids, I had the dream of being a home run hitter. My dad helped my understand that, while home runs make headlines, base hits win ball games. The great thing is, with good technique and good timing, every good hitter gets a home run now and then.

New Method: Not another link blog

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 13:47:38 -0400

As I’m thinking about how I want New Method to grow over the next few months, one thing keeps coming to mind. I don’t want to add to the noise. There are already enough people linking to cool websites or lists of tools. Another link to The Top 73 Responsive Web Design Frameworks isn’t really going to help anyone.

In fact, I want people to look forward to seeing New Method pop up in their Twitter timeline or in their RSS feed because they know it will be something uniquely valuable, not found anywhere else on the Internet. I want people to expect insight from New Method, not regurgitation.

If, three months from now, people think “links and lists” rather than “thoughts and advice” when they think about New Method, I’ll be sad.

So, if you’re interested in learning web development and you want something different, check out New Method. It’s a community with three points of connection: a blog, a Twitter being, and a unique weekly memo.

Best friends

Thu, 21 Mar 2013 18:52:01 -0400

Best friends